Drone Powered Window Cleaning
© Lucid Bots
Cleaning exterior windows is not one of the easiest tasks, though it’s important to do. Maintaining clean windows not only improves the overall appearance of a home or building but also extends the lifetime of glass panes, allows for any imperfections in need of repair to be seen, improves natural light penetration, and helps promote a healthier environment. For homes and smaller structures, a solution attached to a hose or a power washer will usually be enough. But when it comes to large buildings like offices, schools, hotels, skyscrapers, and more, a simple hose or power washer won’t get the job done.
Larger structures can have hundreds of window panes that would take hours to wash manually. Skyscrapers pose an entirely different scenario where spraying water from the ground up is simply not feasible. In these cases, highly trained individuals have to undertake great risk to climb scaffolding and hand wash windows. It is time-consuming, costly, and dangerous. While students at North Carolina’s Davidson College, Andrew Ashur, David Danielson, and Adrian Mayans, came up with a plan that would solve the problems presented by traditional window cleaning methods.
In 2018, after winning Davidson’s fifth annual Venture Fund Pitch Day award, the three college juniors officially launched Lucid Bots, a platform that uses drones to do the dangerous, dirty job of cleaning building exteriors and windows. As CEO, Andrew said that they spent countless hours developing a failsafe drone product that can clean buildings quickly while cutting down costs and keeping people safe. The Lucid Sherpa drone is an easy-to-use tethered drone that anyone can operate, even without a Part 107 drone license.
The drone is fully waterproof, has a 20-minute flight time, onboard cameras to allow the operator to see exactly where to apply cleaning solution, and can clean up to 300 square feet per minute. The drone’s tether is a hose that serves as a clean water supply. As explained by the company, “Our onboard chemical tank with a variable mix ratio means your cleaning solution is on the drone, not your water supply.” After the initial success of the Sherpa Drone, Lucid developed a ground drone called the Lavo Bot that can be used to autonomously clean walkways, parking lots, and other exterior ground spaces. The Lavo Bot has more than a 2-hour run time, only needs 45 minutes to charge, and can clean up to 800 square feet in six minutes.
It didn’t take long for businesses throughout North Carolina to recognize the benefits of using a drone to clean the windows and exteriors of their buildings. Lucid’s Sherpa Drone and Lavo Bot were being used to clean hotels, water towers, solar panel fields, and office buildings. In August of 2024, Lucid announced that they were partnering with Window Hero, a company based out of Charlotte, NC, with franchises throughout the United States. “This new drone-powered cleaning service is a cost-effective solution that allows for a faster cleanup time with a smaller crew using fewer tools,” stated David Blue, president of Window Hero. “We’re excited about this partnership with Lucid and the new services we’ll be able to provide to our clientele.”
Andrew says that by using Lucid drones, companies can save up to 80% on costs compared to their previous traditional cleaning methods. He also mentioned that with a Lucid drone, companies can expect to see a 400% return increase on their investments. And while the results and numbers prove the validity of Lucid drones’ cleaning platform, for Andrew, these drones go beyond being a safe and efficient means of tackling a dirty job. “At Lucid Bots our vision and mission is simple, and that’s to uplift humanity by building the world’s most productive and responsible robots,” Andrew said. “We want to be very clear, robots aren’t a way by which we replace human touch, but rather a way by which we extend our reach.” He goes on to say, “At the end of the day, what makes us distinctly human isn’t the ability to do the same physical motion time and time again. It’s the ability to be creative, to problem solve, and that’s what robots can empower us to do. To allow great people to solve increasingly meaningful problems.”
|